OPM could take steps to help federal agencies better understand their current workforces and make policy decisions, GAO has concluded after a review of OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) payroll data.
Payroll data provide information on federal employees’ pay and benefits and how they allocate their time, as reflected in hours charged to work activities and use of leave, GAO said.
“In this capacity, these data have the potential to provide a more efficient, cost effective, and precise data source for federal agencies and researchers who wish to assess human resources and policy decision making across the federal government. Because these data are not widely available, federal agencies and researchers must rely on other proxy sources for payroll data, which are more limited in the scope of analysis they can provide or the level of detail needed for data-driven human capital studies,” it said.
EHRI data are designed to provide comprehensive source of pay and leave related data across the federal government but only some elements are available for general use and there are questions of reliability about even those, due to weak controls.
“These weaknesses increase the risk of data errors, incomplete data fields, and ineffective monitoring of the EHRI payroll data. Unless OPM takes steps to correct these internal control weaknesses, it will be unable to fully leverage these data to meet its mission and allow others to make full use of these data for their research needs,” it said.
It said OPM agreed with its recommendations to improve the availability of the data and to tighten the controls to better assure reliability.
